Conference Focus:The question of time has become a major concern in critical theory and is proving to be aparticularly useful means of approaching gender and sex/uality. Important recent work in thefield of gender studies and queer theory has begun to explicitly address and render visible howtime comes to structure and determine the meaning of bodily experiences and expressions.Non-normative sex/ualities are commonly delegated out of time, for instance, via the promise offuturity and the negation of historical grounding and traditions. The attempt to locate these verysame bodies and their sexual practices in time raises the question whether time can be refiguredor manipulated in order to open up the possibility of epistemological and ontologicalalternatives. This conference aims to explore present and past narratives of sexuality, the variouslinks between heterogeneous temporalities and dissident sex/ualities and to ask what is at stakein the recent turn to time in gender studies and queer theory.The conference is interdisciplinary and open to all research students and academics. We stronglyencourage proposals from doctoral students at any stage of their research and from alldisciplines.

Topics for papers can include, but are not limited to:- Investigating and challenging normative figurations of time and becoming- Back to the roots: alternative genealogies, queer historiographies and the desire for traditions- Histories of sex/uality and possible rewritings of the history of sex/uality- No future, queer future? Queer theory reproductivity and the struggle with futurity- Queer utopias/dystopias- Visionary sex: future sex practices and technophilic constructions of sex/uality- Representing time/sex: temporal erotics in film, literature and modern culture- Temporalities and sex/ualities in narration- History and development of gender/sex/ualities studies: where we are now?- Post-gender: the end of gender and/or gender studies?- Temporalising sex/ualities: anticipation, identity and desire- How sexuality can be used to rethink time

Submission Details:Please send a 300-word abstract for 20-mintue papers along with your name and affiliation tosexualitiesconference2008_at_hotmail.co.uk by 15th August. The organisers will contactsuccessful applicants by 25th August with full details and registration information. Pleaseindicate in your email if you are an AHRC-funded doctoral student.

The conference is a joint venture between the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh andsupported by the AHRC.